Square’s Crypto Payment Cash App Bans Gab

The notorious social media platform Gab faces further financial woes as US-based Square’s Cash App becomes the last payment processor to deplatform it. The US-based crypto service froze Gab founder’s personal accounts just two days after the social network announced they had moved to Square.

“Update: Square has blocked Andrew Torba's personal Cash App account and we've reached out for an update,” reads a tweet by the site published on January 8.

The development was reported mere hours after Gab tweeted they had sent over 850,000 emails, urging its users to donate Bitcoin through Cash App. The social network hailed BTC as for “censorship-resistant free speech money and payment processing” against alleged censorship of “influential alternative media personalities and companies.” The screenshot of the email also describes that Gab had begun accepting BTC for its GabPro premium service.

This is not the first time Gab has been deplatformed by a payment services provider. In December, the site announced their business accounts on Coinbase had been closed permanently, allegedly due to hate speech hosted on the social network. Gab had previously gone offline in October 2018 after it was banned from the payment platforms Stripe and PayPal, as well as GoDaddy, Shopify, and Medium, among others.

Established in 2016, Gab advertises itself as a "free speech social media platform," but has widely been perceived as a haven for far-right extremist and political activists, and criticized for allowing and hosting xenophobic speech. In October 2018, it was revealed Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers used Gab to spread anti-Semitic tirades.

Although it has been widely criticized for allowing far-right and xenophobic content on its site, Gab is not the only notorious case of deplatforming in the crypto community. In April of 2018, Julian Assange announced Coinbase had terminated WikiLeak’s merchant account for an undisclosed violation of services.

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